Shocking new Alliance and Leicester Fees!

walkel12

I have two Account with the Alliance and Leicester one which i use for paying my bills from and another which i use for spending.

Where do i start?

Ive recently been to India/Sri Lanka for a month and having spoken to the bank to make them aware i was going to these areas they decided to send me a letter the day before i was going saying that there was a new bank card in the post and i would recieve it in the next seven days! which is no good to me as i will be in India. So i contacted the bank and was advised that they would not activate the new card until i got back. Two weeks into my trip my bank card stopped working and luckily for me i had another!!!So thats the first thing!

The second is that when i flew into Sri Lanka they would only let me get £25 a day from the cash machine instead of allowing me to withdraw the desired amount which happened to work out at £44 which apparently was too Hi to authorise to they are onto a real money making bracket there because it meant i had to withdraw twice instead of once to recieve the same amount of money i needed and they charge me £1.50 for every withdrawl so it cost me double to access my money.

Thirdly on returning to the UK my spending account which has no direct debits / no overdraft was in credit of 0.71p then all of a sudden they hit me with a £45 exceeding overdraft limit charge i called to advise the agents who said they would look into the account but it would take 2/3 weeks and advised me to put some money in the account ( I DONT THINK SOOOO! ) why should i fund there computer error ......ive now recieved a £75 bank charge for the account going £44 over drawn..... and still no manager has called me as requested or any body got back to me at all !!!!!

So this just goes to show to those people who are singing A&L Praises that they dont know there Elbow from there Asssss!

Lee

SlyOne_2

Slightly off the beaten path here, but there is yet another charge you have to face from A&L and that is why I'm leaving them after only 3 months. Every time you need a statement, you have to cough up £5!

I have the Premier Direct account which I fully realise is an online account and I wouldn't mind having to pay for paper versions of ordered statements if I could have access to online statements but there are none! All A&L provide in their internet banking are statements showing transactions, but no actual monthly or periodic statements as standalone documents.

My previous online banking account with the Halifax for instance issued me with PDF statements every month which I could print and keep. A&L do no such thing. Even if you try to print their statement of transactions by date (e.g. for a month), all you get is a list of transactions but nothing with your name or address on it. In effect, should you need a proper bank statement for any purpose to show your revenue to some external party, there is no other way to do it, other than pay £5 per statement per month. Frankly, I find that rather revolting.

MarkyMarkD

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Do you have me on 'ignore' MMD? If not, is this a superfluous post?

I don't have anyone on 'ignore' - that would be ignorant. And I enjoy your posts. I was reading through the posts in order and responding and failed to notice yours before replying - sorry!

MarkyMarkD

walkel12 wrote: »

The second is that when i flew into Sri Lanka they would only let me get £25 a day from the cash machine instead of allowing me to withdraw the desired amount which happened to work out at £44 which apparently was too Hi to authorise to they are onto a real money making bracket there because it meant i had to withdraw twice instead of once to recieve the same amount of money i needed and they charge me £1.50 for every withdrawl so it cost me double to access my money.

I can't believe for an instant that this was an A&L-imposed limit. I can only believe that it was a transaction limit imposed by the local bank. No UK bank is going to cap overseas transactions at £25.

Thirdly on returning to the UK my spending account which has no direct debits / no overdraft was in credit of 0.71p then all of a sudden they hit me with a £45 exceeding overdraft limit charge i called to advise the agents who said they would look into the account but it would take 2/3 weeks and advised me to put some money in the account ( I DONT THINK SOOOO! ) why should i fund there computer error ......ive now recieved a £75 bank charge for the account going £44 over drawn..... and still no manager has called me as requested or any body got back to me at all !!!!!

I don't understand any need to take 2/3 weeks to investigate what has gone on here. Surely you can tell us from your internet banking transaction record what happened between your cleared balance being 71p and your £45 in charges? Or, are you certain that the 71p was in fact cleared funds when the charges were incurred?

MarkyMarkD

SlyOne wrote: »

Slightly off the beaten path here, but there is yet another charge you have to face from A&L and that is why I'm leaving them after only 3 months. Every time you need a statement, you have to cough up £5!

I have the Premier Direct account which I fully realise is an online account and I wouldn't mind having to pay for paper versions of ordered statements if I could have access to online statements but there are none! All A&L provide in their internet banking are statements showing transactions, but no actual monthly or periodic statements as standalone documents.

My previous online banking account with the Halifax for instance issued me with PDF statements every month which I could print and keep. A&L do no such thing. Even if you try to print their statement of transactions by date (e.g. for a month), all you get is a list of transactions but nothing with your name or address on it. In effect, should you need a proper bank statement for any purpose to show your revenue to some external party, there is no other way to do it, other than pay £5 per statement per month. Frankly, I find that rather revolting.

I never have to show anyone printed statements. I don't see that paying £5 once in a blue moon for this is too much, to be honest.

SlyOne_2

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

I never have to show anyone printed statements. I don't see that paying £5 once in a blue moon for this is too much, to be honest.

That is a very British thing to say and I don't mean that in a bad sense. Some of us however aren't that fortunate. I am not a British national, which means I need statements each time I need a visa renewal either for this country or if I want to go anywhere in Europe or the rest of the world. And that doesn't happen once in a blue moon, especially with the length of visas issued these days. In 3 months, I've paid £40 for statements already (It's not just £5, it's £5 per statement per month, so if you need the last 3 months' worth, that's £15). That may be little to some, but it's not to me.

YorkshireBoy

SlyOne wrote: »

In 3 months, I've paid £40 for statements already (It's not just £5, it's £5 per statement per month, so if you need the last 3 months' worth, that's £15). That may be little to some, but it's not to me.

Is it possible to convert your account to the Premier, which does offer statements by post (but also has a lower 'in credit' interest rate)?

masonic

SlyOne wrote: »

My previous online banking account with the Halifax for instance issued me with PDF statements every month which I could print and keep. A&L do no such thing. Even if you try to print their statement of transactions by date (e.g. for a month), all you get is a list of transactions but nothing with your name or address on it.

I'm sure this subject has come up in regards to other online accounts. Generally, the solution in those cases was to display the transactions for a particular month, then print the webpage itself. You can then combine this with an additional document (for example a certificate of tax deduction), which does contain your name and address, so that you have all the information required.

MarkyMarkD

YB's solution is the obvious one. Premier and Premier Direct are very similar apart from the "benefit" (obviously very applicable to SlyOne) of getting printed statements.

Otherwise, SlyOne could change banks - but that's a bit drastic compared to changing account type which could be done without a change of account number and consequently very little hassle indeed.

Masonic's suggestions are also good - companies demanding bank statements have got to get used to online statements. The reality is that it isn't that hard to fake a standard bank statement nowadays, so rejecting online statements because "they could be faked" is honestly a cop-out.